Page 22 - March 2017 Rev E_Neat

ISSUE NUMBER 165 MARCH 2017
THE TOWN CRIER

1959 Renault Concept Car — An automobile oddity!

Just in case you are wondering what is so odd about this Renault, look to the left and you will find the steering wheel
where you thought the rear of the car was!! The car is totally backwards., look at the door handles. It was powered by
a 1.7 Liter V8 engine located in the rear (the right side) that looks like the front but is the rear. Ah the French.!!

How Balloons helped the British in World War II

Operation Outward was the name given to the British World War II program to attack Germany by means of free-
flying balloons. It made use of cheap, simple balloons filled with hydrogen. They carried either a trailing steel wire
intended to damage high voltage power lines by producing a short circuit, or incendiary devices that were intended to
start fires in fields, forests and heathland. A total of 99,142 Outward balloons were launched; about half carried in-
cendiaries and half carried trailing wires The free flying balloon attacks were highly successful. Although difficult to
assess exactly, they had an economic impact on Germany far in excess of the cost to the British government. After the
war, German records revealed that the trailing wire attacks had caused the Germans considerable inconvenience with
electricity supplies regularly being interrupted and significant damage to the electrical distribution network. A 1946
report concluded that, based on available records, £1,500,000 of damage were done (approximately equivalent to £49
million in 2017). The report also stated that the actual amount of damage must have been far higher because the re-
cords were very incomplete with no available records for the Russian zone and all records becoming less reliable after
1943. The Germans had attempted to record interrupts to the lower voltage lines, but the incidents were so frequent
that the recording was abandoned. In addition to sending up fighters, the Germans used anti-aircraft fire against the
balloons, sometimes shut down electric cables when an attack was anticipated, and modified the circuit breakers on
high voltage networks.

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